The present invention relates to the treatment of ailments within the body of a patient, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for focusing medical treatment of cancerous or tumorous tissue.
It has long been desired to treat certain medical conditions, such as cancer, by focusing the treatment specifically to the affected area. By focusing the treatment, higher concentrations of treatment can be utilized without seriously damaging the surrounding, non-affected tissue.
Many techniques have been tried, including the insertion of a plurality needles directly into the affected tissue to perform specific therapeutic treatments, for example, gene therapy, brachytherapy and electroporation. One of the initial problems with directly inserting needles was the accuracy of placement of the needles. To increase accuracy, rigid templates with through holes have been used to guide the needles.
The techniques used to implement the therapeutic treatments vary widely. Microwave technologies utilizing a plurality of antennae placed into the affected tissue has been tried, but this technique is not easily automated. Hyperthermia has also been performed by heating the needle with an electrical heating element, hot water, ferromagnetic seeds and RF-driven electrodes. However, the prior art has had difficulty controlling the distribution of heat with these methods. The use of a localized sensor for heat generation solves some of these problems, however, the heat generators of the prior art only allow the control of heat in two dimensions utilizing a plurality of needles spaced a distance apart.
Needle placement techniques generally require methods of verifying final placement of the needles. X-ray has been used to help determine the accuracy of the final position. This technique is time consuming, costly and requires the patient to be exposed to potentially high amounts of radiation. Ultrasound has also been used to determine the final placement of needles. However, the reflected ultrasound waves are very often too weak to obtain an accurate reading. Further, the needles have small diameters, thus producing a very small amount of reflection.
One of the problems with the prior art approaches to therapies utilizing a plurality of placed needles within the affected tissue is that the control of the therapy requires direct wiring of the needles or fixed hard printed circuit board for a single application. Further, the prior art does not provide an effective way to both monitor and control the therapy. Nor does the prior art provide an effective way of implementing, controlling and varying the therapy in a three dimensional approach. Further, the prior art cannot implement multiple therapies utilizing a single needle positioned within a single template. The control of the prior art therapies are not highly automated, thus requiring a large amount of doctor and technician time to implement and complete.
It is a general object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for implementing, monitoring and adjusting the treatment of an affected area of a patient""s body.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an automated system for implementing and controlling treatments of affected tissue.
It is a further object of the present invention to deliver and control the treatment in three dimensions.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide for verification of the placement of the needles.
The foregoing and other objects of the invention are achieved by an apparatus and method to implement and control a plurality of minimally invasive therapies in the treatment of a medical condition of a patient. The treatment is based on a treatment plan. The apparatus includes a template which has a plurality of electrically conductive apertures, a plurality of needles which have a plurality of sensors and a processor which includes a memory block for storing the treatment plan. At least one of the needles is inserted through and in electrical contact with one of the conductive apertures. The processor is electrically coupled to the template and is configured to send power and signals to and receive signals from at least one of the sensors of at least one of the needles inserted through one of the conductive apertures of the template. The processor is further configured to process the signals received from the sensor in relation to the treatment plan and to adjust the signals sent to the sensor to control the treatment.